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Cleric
Nov 12, 2007 8:00:49 GMT -5
Post by Mirabilis on Nov 12, 2007 8:00:49 GMT -5
*The last press interview over with, Father sits back in her seat, placing her booted feet up on the desk and lighting up a slimline cigar. She still feels a bit woozy from the "unshrinking" she experienced after The Doctor's rescue and subsequent safe passage back to the palace, accompanied by his posse of faithful catmonkeys. Her personal staff...who had gone underground while the palace was ransacked and later came creeping warily back once the coast was clear...are now scurrying hither and thither as she barks commands at them* Tell The Doctor that he has QM's full co-operation while he investigates the "space/time anomaly" in her...ummm...private chamber! Get me an update on how long the decorators are going to take to get this place back to the standard I expect! Bring me those revised plans for the proposed conversion of the old Equilibrium Tower into a one-million-square-foot City Centre Megawaitrose! Get me an update on the search for that annoying little tick Prestan.....I have unfinished business with HIM! And get me another double espresso...yeuuuuk....this one tastes like last night's dishwater! *She puffs out a stream of aromatic smoke as her desk communicator lights up* Yes! Oh he is, is he? Right...well show him right in please! *She smiles and takes another puff as the chamber door opens and a familiar, tall and imposing figure enters the room and strides purposefully toward her. She continues to regard him as he comes to a halt and stares at her with a half smile on his own rugged features* Ah...my dear brother-in-law...what took you so long? SO good to see you again....how is my sister doing? Huh...not THAT great obviously if she's still mad enough to be with YOU!! So EG......you wanted to talk? So talk!
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Cleric
Nov 12, 2007 8:04:58 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 12, 2007 8:04:58 GMT -5
Aedh strides into Father’s office, having surveyed the work going on. Everything is going as planned. The “renovations” and “installations” are going according to both her specs … and his. Which is only reasonable, seeing as he’s paying for it.
She’s leaning back in her chair, feet on the desk, puffing away just as cocksure as ever, he smiles to himself. Almost like old times … almost.
“I’m glad to see you’re settling in nicely … two things, my dear. Perhaps three,” he says. “Of course, we’re happy to underwrite the loans necessary for the settlement of Prestan’s debts and to cover your own needs while you establish yourself. I’ve consulted with the other members of the Governors of the Bank of Libria, and they’ve consented to extend the necessary credits … in return for a modest after-tax deduction from your paycheck. The figure settled upon is twenty-two percent, spread out over the next seventeen years. We have your signature … it’s small, but legible.” He waves a folder of photocopies. “Unshrinking can be—rather disorienting.” He permits himself a small smile. "If you wish to recover from Prestan … well, he doesn’t have much left, I’m afraid. But the courts are open to you.”
“Balanced against that is the rather unwary amount of borrowing that Waitrose had to get into to close the deal on the EQ Megacentre. Unfortunately, they inked the deal before it was discovered that TESCO—er, somehow--managed to legally acquire a one-foot-wide patch of land that runs straight through the middle of the building. I have spoken to Sir Terry about it, and he consented to sell the strip … in exchange for twenty-five percent of Waitrose’s parent company’s voting stock. Oh, don’t worry—“ he gives Father a reassuring gesture—“sit down … sit down. It just so happens that my holding company, in the resulting sell-off, managed to enlarge its share to twenty-six percent. So TESCO PLC, and I, between us, now own fifty-one percent of Waitrose. We don’t always have to vote together. On the other hand, he’s made me a princely offer to form a Waitrose Holdings Company for the purpose of exercising control … I’m thinking about it. I thought I'd ask your opinion.”
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 12:00:38 GMT -5
Post by Mirabilis on Nov 13, 2007 12:00:38 GMT -5
*Father gives EG a long hard stare and puffs some more on her cigar......then leaning back again in her chair her feet go back up on the desk and she taps the pointy toes of her shiny black leather boots together in a thoughtful way and smiles at him sweetly*
Hmmm....well gosh EG....what can I say? You seem to have thought of everything. You always were good at the bureaucratic side of things. Now me.....well.....I'm just a simple girl really.....not one for red tape and all that...
*She raises the heel of one boot up momentarily then brings it down with a hard smack onto a big red button embedded in the table*
I believe in....DIRECT ACTION!!!
*A large trap door snaps open beneath EG and he drops through it like a stone. Father grins and leaning forward hits her desk communicator*
Yo QM! Your old acquaintance has dropped in as planned! Can you let me know when he's in a position to re-negotiate terms? But not TOO soon.....I'm sure you two have a LOT to catch up on first!
*There is an answering husky laugh through the loudspeaker and the sound of a strangled wail in the background. Father chuckles and flicks the "off" button, then leans back in her chair again and takes one last long pull on her cigar. Blowing out the smoke in a plume she smiles and starts to hum a familiar ditty...*
Why’d ya have to do it—Evil Genius? Was it justified in your mind? Why’d ya put us through it—Evil Genius? Was it justified in your mind, Anytime you held a grudge …?
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 12:15:23 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2007 12:15:23 GMT -5
*shakes fist ... as much as possible in its wrist cuff* "I'll get you my pretty ... and your little dog too!"
Except, through the latex mask, it sounds more like: 'Mmb gbb y mm bwty .. n w wddl dg dmmbg!'
"Schutten Sie UP!!" *SMACK!*
[Watch this space ... oh yes ... watch carefully children!]
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 13:42:36 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2007 13:42:36 GMT -5
Somewhere in a locker where QM’s thrown his possessions, EG Aedh’s wristwatch ticks the passing of the twenty-hour hour mark since has failed to activate the ‘Signal Disable,’ as he does daily.
The device sends out a burst of electronic code, which is picked up by a monitoring geo-stationary satellite.
In Mamba’s office, where she has been trying to get word of him with no success, a certain light fixture—which has never been on due to ‘a bad circuit or something … we’ll have to have someone in for that one of these days,’ now glows into life. She turns and looks … recognising the emergency signal.
At once she straightens her sharkskin skirt—as much as it’s possible to meaningfully straighten a garment eighteen inches long—and walks quickly to her desk, where she begins punching in passwords. This is something they drill for several times a year. After submitting to a retinal scan from a device which telescopes down out of a hidden panel in the ceiling, she speaks into her headset: “Class A through D personnel, and Numbers less than 100: attention. attention. Implement Plan Zeta. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.”
Immediately, all over the Evil Genius’ invisible empire, personnel spring into action. First, select stocks are automatically sold on the market to prepare for what’s coming. Then, after an hour, banks and financial institutions are closed. Deliveries are halted. Online systems which enable most businesses to post and update transactions become “temporarily unvailable--“ except for the dedicated network which serves TESCO locations. Internet suddenly slows to glacial speeds. And to everyone who’s watching a screen or listening to a radio, it fuzzes out, to be replaced by a brief tableau playing patriotic music and showing stirring scenes of Clerics and Sweepers ridding Libria of sense-offence. The Halls of Justice and of Destruction are shown, as are squadrons of drilling Sweepers and troops.
Then a familiar visage appears: Father. Sure looks like Father, anyway, Mamba notes with satisfaction. Rima had cooperated nicely … The voices weren’t quite the same, but electronic processing had fixed that. The pre-recorded video plays …
“Greetings to all of my dearly-beloved citizens of Libria. While you are to be commended for your many accomplishments making Libria one of the world’s best, safest, most environmentally sound, and socially-conscious places to live, it is time to take our achievements to the next level. Therefore I have announced the following measures, to be implemented at once, on behalf of the safety of Libria and the benefit of the world community.
“Traffic is to be restricted. To protect the environment, all privately-owned combustion-powered vehicles are now prohibited. In order to assist the effort, trains and buses will run on revised schedules, running only twice a day on each line. It’s true that if you miss your train you may have to wait four hours for another unless you care to walk home … but you will be doing your part to conserve precious fuel and reduce Libria’s carbon footprint.
“To foster a sense of civic virtue and set an example to younger citizens, the sale of all alcoholic and tobacco products is now forbidden. My dear citizens … you know you shouldn’t be doing these things anyway. You owe it to me, and to the State which fosters your lives with loving care, to assist you in improving your health and well-being.
“In addition, a curfew on private citizens is imposed, from nine P.M. until five A.M. We must all conserve our energies for useful efforts, instead of frittering them away on evening amusements. A programme of public fitness is being implemented, and soon every citizen will be required to report for an hour of morning Physical Training at five-thirty A.M. at areas designated in their neighbourhoods. It will do you nothing but good.
“Rubbish sorting, in order to bring efficiency to recycling, is being implemented. Every residential unit will be issued with sixteen colour-coded bins into which rubbish must be separated. Broadcasting and cinematic entertainments will also be revamped. Rubbishy viewing which does nothing but generate emotion will be censored, and all such materials confiscated and destroyed. Programmes calculated to instil patriotism, industry, and education in useful arts will be shown instead.
“The public school week will be extended, with classes now in session on Saturdays. Pupils will be required to report at seven AM on Saturdays, suited up for a fun day of community service and paramilitary training. No exceptions will be made. The entire community must become more conscious of the need for national strength.
“To effect this, I have ordered a massive expansion of Libria’s police and military strength. All eighteen-year-olds will now be required to present themselves for registration, and will serve a two-year term doing something useful for their caring and loving Motherland. This will commence immediately. Non-compliance will result in arrest and imprisonment, and a certificate of completion of National Service will be required in order for any student to obtain employment or a place in a University.
“Finally, in order to fund this national effort, I have ordered a round of tax hikes. Effective immediately, a value-added tax of twenty-seven percent is to be added to all sales; Council rates will rise between fifteen and thirty percent dependent on your neighbourhood, and income tax withholding will rise twenty-five percent across the board. This will be supplemented by an additional fifteen percent hike to add to old-age pension funds, since the number of elderly Librians will undoubtedly rise as the general health improves.
“I am aware, beloved citizens, that these measure will be opposed. The opposition may even have a bogus Father in readiness to attempt to countermand my orders. Therefore I now make it known that no countermanding of these measures by anyone who appears to be me is to be believed for a moment. I take personal responsibility for these measures. My commitment to the values which will strengthen Libria, save the environment, and protect the Earth is well-known. Librians, to your stations!” she exhorts. “Now is not the time to go wobbly. Forward, and let the brightness of to-morrow exceed the fair dawn of to-day!”
Mamba watches the swelling of the closing patriotic music with a chuckle. “Play games with the Boss, eh?” she says to herself. “Well, this game is just getting started!”
She looks at another monitor. Already the financial markets have tanked and are starting to close in a panic. It will take the personal appearance of one man … one powerful, authoritative figure who commands wide respect … whose influence spreads into every facet of Librian life … only he can stem the tide now.
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 15:24:27 GMT -5
Post by Mirabilis on Nov 13, 2007 15:24:27 GMT -5
*Father stands watching "herself" make the final announcement and fading to black, the patriotic music echoes mockingly in her head.....her eyes have grown wide and oddly glazed....her mouth gapes open slackly....a cup of fresh espresso which was halfway to her lips is now frozen on the spot....then slowly....very slowly...begins to tremble.......the tremble turns to a shake until with one last spasm it jerks and falls to the floor to shatter into a hundred shards and spray its dark contents all over Father's nice shiny boots. She looks down slowly, her eyes vacantly staring at the stain spreading across the marble floor at her feet*
He's destroyed me.......as surely as if he'd put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. And my sister helped him....my dear darling sister whose husband I spared out of compassion for her feelings.....against my better judgment!
*She blinks and slowly walks over to her desk and flicks the switch for the desk communicator*
QM..........QM......can you hear me?
Jah mein liebling.....vot iz it....you know I do not like to be dizturbed ven I am....entertaining gueztz!
Do me a favour will you QM? Will you kill EG for me now please?
Vot did you zay???
I said...kill him! No more entertainment tonight....the show is over!
Are you zure liebling?? I mean vot about ze rrrre-negotiationz?
Never mind all that......it's too late....much too late! Now kill him.
Vell I don't know iv.....
I....said......KILLLLLLLL HIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!!!!!!
*She cuts the communication and slumps back in her chair....a strange half-smile on her lips. Her finger toys with a ring on the middle finger of her right hand...it has a large blood-red oval stone in a gold setting. She fiddles with it for a second and the stone suddenly pops up on a tiny hinge to reveal two small capsules which she shakes out onto the desk top. She picks one up between each thumb and index finger and holds them in front of her face*
Now then.......what do we think?
Father: Take the blue pill!
Evil Overlord: Take the red pill!
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 17:12:55 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2007 17:12:55 GMT -5
*low Wurlitzer organ music plays a few bars ... then voice-over announcer* "Has Evil Genius Aedh truly met a sticky end? Is this curtains for Father--and the beginning of some regrettable, but perhaps--you know--not entirely insalubrious discipline for the Librian population??
"Stay Tuned for the next thrilling installment of ... 'Cleric!'"
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 19:34:38 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2007 19:34:38 GMT -5
The fetish mistress clicks off the communicator, strides over to where EG Aedh lays trussed on a rack, his big body already bearing welts. Sweat trickles down the bare skin, stinging some of the open places, where he’s not securely lashed up in leather or rubber. She sighs … he really has been a lot of fun. Such endurance is not easily found.
Nevertheless, she positions herself behind and above him, spreading out her big, stiletto-heeled feet, and takes his head in both hands. He moans vaguely; she prepares herself for the killing twist … when the video monitor in the corner again crackles, and a picture comes up. It is again Mamba … QM curses herself for forgetting to disable it.
“Mother?” says Mamba, wiping her moist eyes. “Mum, are you there? I need to talk to you a moment.”
The big woman thinks—this won’t take long. She can carry out her orders momentarily. She lets go the big man’s head and walks over to the middle of the room where the ‘cam is positioned. “Ja, mein little Helga? Speak, but be brief. Ey em in ze middle of zumtink.”
Mamba sniffs. “Mum … I’ve been looking everywhere for Aedh. He’s gone … I didn’t think to check with you. You know many things … have you seen him?”
Of course, the arch-dominatrix has, but she’s not fool enough to admit it to Aedh’s factotum. The memory of the last invasion of her domain is all too clear. “Nein, mein Kindchen, ey heffen’t. For vy did you vant to findt him enyvays? He has done nottingk but evil to zis city.”
“He’s not all that bad a man—“ here she raises her head for a direct, piercing look—“not bad enough so that a daughter’s heart cannot feel any desire to to what she can for him.”
“Himmel!” exclaims the big woman, giving a quick hitch to her size 46-F leather bra. “Ey zink you are confused … vot has you beingk mein daughter haff to do viz him?”
“Since he vanished, I’ve been going though his papers,” says Mamba. “He had them e-locked with password-protection, but I know him. I figured the passwords out. I feel like I’ve always known him. And I have always known him. He’s my father. This is no prank and no joke. The documentation is authentic … that is the secret he kept from me. And that is why he promised to release me from the toils of his organisation. I’m not his employee. I’m his heiress.”
The Queen Mother’s jaw drops. She thinks back, nearly a quarter-century … to when she was a young Fetish Mistress working in a grimy Hamburg backroom, under the lash of the Domina from whom she learned her trade. A certain young man who said he was a military officer … she closes her eyes, summoning up the pictures … her brain reels … but her heart cries out: Jawohl … Mein Kommandant!!
“Wunderbar!” she cries, visions of diamonds … corsets made of exotic materials … whips of forbidden hides like lemur … cheetah and panda-skin rugs … platinum spikes on her wristlets—not to mention solid-gold health coverage for her declining years--dancing in her head. “Zo! You vouldn’t mindt at all, zen, if you vere to inherit his empire to-day?”
Mamba sighs. “I’m not ready … there’s still much I don’t know. If anything has happened to him, it would all dissolve … I’d be practically bankrupt. He keeps so much in his head.”
“Ey’ll see vot ey can do,” says the dominatrix hurriedly, a plan rapidly forming in her head with its heavy, intricate blonde braids wrapped one around another like motorway off-ramps in the City Centre. "Auf wiedersehen mein darlingk." She hits the remote and turns, tapping a riding crop against her boot.
Far upstairs … Father’s dark musings are interrupted by the doors of her office flying open, and a crowd of people pouring in … laughing! They surround her desk, congratulating her. “Wonderful!” “You had us all going there, Ma’am!” “Do you know … they had to stop a guy at the Stock Exchange from throwing himself out of a window??” “Hilarious!” “You’re the BEST!!” “Even The Comic never pulled one off like this!!” They hoist her on their shoulders, breaking out into a chorus of “For She’s A Jolly Good Father.”
In reply to her bewildered questions, someone thrusts a sheet torn from her desk calendar in front of her. It bears to-day’s date … 1 April.
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Cleric
Nov 13, 2007 22:13:38 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2007 22:13:38 GMT -5
The End ... of Chapter One at least.
Anyone interested in starting a Chapter Two ... this humble scribbler, at least, awaits an action post. I seem to sense that Mira's done.
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Cleric
Nov 17, 2007 19:03:27 GMT -5
Post by Vespertilio on Nov 17, 2007 19:03:27 GMT -5
***Chapter One Epilogue***
The Doctor, attempting to find the source of the anomaly in the Queen Mother's “private chamber” finds himself dodging, ducking, and otherwise avoiding QM as she attempts to engage in what she keeps referring to as “role-play”; something about geeks and dominatrixes...
Finally, he is able to escape when QM is distracted by the sudden arrival of a somewhat worse-for-wear Evil Genius. Rattling off a quick line about needing something from the TARDIS, he makes a run (literally) for his trusty time capsule.
“Well, that was weird, even for me!” as he leans up against the inside of the TARDIS door as if to make sure nothing (and no one) can follow him in.
“Squreek!!! Squrawk!!! Squeeeel!!!” The Katzmin are clustered around something under the console, chittering excitedly and...purring...?
Moving carefully so as not to startle the little creatures (he doesn't fancy shrinking again) he kneels down and peers into the group of happy Cat-Monkeys.
“Whaaaaat?!?!” he exclaims verrrry quietly.
“Oh...hello...” says the little (very little), grey suited, bespectacled auditor Peabody. He is Katzmin sized and the furry critters, strangely, seem to simply adore him. They gently paw the lapels of his suit, rub his balding head, and seem utterly fascinated by his spectacles.
“Riiiiight...” the Doctor slowly stands up and backs away, “So, ready to go home then?”
The question is met by a chorus of purrs and chitters.
“You alright with that, errr...”
“Peabody, Sir.”
“Ah, yes...Peabody?”
“Oh yes Sir! It's nice to be wanted for a change.”
“Gooood...” the Doctor swiftly sets the coordinates to the Katzmins' planet, finding the whole scenario was getting a little too unsettling, even by his standards...
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Prestan
Vice Council in Charge of Flames and Summary Combustions
Not Without Innocence
Posts: 128
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Cleric
Nov 27, 2007 22:30:16 GMT -5
Post by Prestan on Nov 27, 2007 22:30:16 GMT -5
the fact that this is still alive, is nothing short of amazing
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Cleric
Nov 28, 2007 0:24:32 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Nov 28, 2007 0:24:32 GMT -5
the fact that this is still alive, is nothing short of amazing Well, Chapter One is in the can. I might soldier on with a Chapter Two if a couple of other volunteers stepped up. *looks at Prestan meaningfully*
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Cleric
Oct 1, 2013 10:13:07 GMT -5
Post by Aedh on Oct 1, 2013 10:13:07 GMT -5
bump.
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